How to be envied was the noiseless speed
With which that life slipped from the earth to Heaven!
Of tearful, sad good-byes, what were the need?
Leaving our door to meet us at the even.

Dear face! it smiled, as if in happy sleep,
To reach where cometh nevermore a care;
Who pass beyond leave fewer here to weep,
While making, too, our larger welcome There.

Fond children's graves keep his from being lone;
Ah! once what bitter tears and groans they cost!
But now when dust and spirit meet their own,
He finds a home with those he wept as lost.

But earth must still be dear, so very dear,
Since holding yet of Heaven so large a part,—
Here still are children, and the wife is here,
Who made the constant spring-tide of his heart.

With him she counted, just the other day,
Of wedded life their six-and-fifty years;
Fresh, bright, and sweet as is this opening May,
They kept their love, if sorrows claimed their tears.

Though spring seem never spring to her again,
As when the most of life beside her stood,
Yet must this green and bloom console her pain,
Revealing Nature's tender motherhood!